And they’re singing this beautiful song like nothing they’d ever heard by any human voice. That this beautiful song singing praise to God. Glory to God in the highest. And then just as quickly they all vanish and it’s quiet again. The sheep are still scattered but it’s it’s quiet.

And the question is what do you do with that news? You know, good news is sometimes hard to come by in our world. When I think of what I see on my phone’s news feed, it’s generally not a lot of good news. Most often it’s either bad news or useless news, right? But these angels said they brought good news of great joy and it’s for everybody.

Doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, it’s for all. Now, we might ask the question, why the shepherds? Why these guys? Because you know in those times ancient times the shepherds had this unfortunate reputation as kind of being these these lower tier people. They were looked at as the riff raff the the thieves the vagabons.

In fact there was a Jewish law at the time if you can believe it that said you can’t admit the testimony of a shepherd in court simply because of their reputation because of what they were known for even though it wasn’t necessarily true. One scholar said they were so low on the social totem pole of their day that they were just barely above lepers. It goes it goes them at the bottom and then lepers right below them. And that’s how people viewed shepherds. But there’s you know it’s kind of a strange thing because there’s an irony with shepherds that you know the world at that time at least looked down on shepherds.

And yet throughout scripture we see God continually trying to use these shepherds. He he gives them this elevated position over and over. In fact, you can think of the very first shepherd that would be Abel secondborn boy of of earth history. And he is a shepherd who brings the great the right sacrifice to the Lord. And then there’s Jacob later known as Israel.

He was a shepherd, the he’s kind of the father of the Jewish nation. There’s the great lawgiver Moses. He was once a shepherd. The great King David was a shepherd. And even God himself in the Psalms and the prophets is called a shepherd.

And so when you look at it, it’s like the world was determined to look down on these people. And yet God was more determined to elevate and dignify this lonely occupation of being a shepherd. See, by sending the angels to the shepherds, God was sending a a message loud and clear that his gospel is for everyone. It’s not just for the wealthy, the elite, or the power brokers of society. It it’s for the overlooked, that the outcasts, those who most people wouldn’t want around.

The gospel is for everyone. And the that’s basically that’s what fits the story of Christmas because here God is doing the most amazing thing ever. This is the biggest reason to celebrate God himself coming to earth as a baby. And who does he invite? He invites those guys that never got invited to any party.

He says, “I want you guys to be the first to know.” The reason for this is simple. According to Christianity, salvation is by grace. By grace. Now, if you want to understand Christianity, you can’t really understand it if you don’t know what that word grace means.

Grace means it is something given to you that you not only don’t deserve, you’re undeserving, but you’re you’re actually illdeserving. You deserve something far worse and God chooses to give you something far better. Grace means that we can’t earn it. It’s not about accomplishment. It’s not about achievement.

It’s not about me climbing this ladder to heaven. It’s about God coming down. It’s not about what I do for God. It’s about what God has done for me in Jesus Christ. Grace is the explanation.

And the most clear statement I know of in the Bible on this is Ephesians 2:8:9. It says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing.” This is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that nobody can boast. See, you can’t boast when you receive a gift you didn’t deserve. All you can do is receive it and be grateful.

The angels told them, “For unto you is born this day a Savior who is Christ the Lord.” And there is a lot bound up in that single statement. First of all, the fact that he’s born means that he is a human. He’s like us. He’s one of us.

We all came into this world because we were born. Well, so did Jesus. He is a fully human person. And he’s a descendant of David. He is the rightful heir of Israel’s throne.

The angels also call him the Christ. Now Christ is not Jesus’s last name. Though that’s a common misconception. Christ is a title. And because that name is the title is so associated with him.

We say Jesus Christ. And every time we’re saying that, we’re actually saying Jesus is the Messiah. He’s the anointed king. He’s the promised one that God said through the prophets all through the ages. This king is going to come.

He’s going to restore the kingdom. He’s going to restore humanity. And he’s going to reconcile these two parties. In fact, 700 years before this night, we’ve read this before, but the prophet said, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders, and he will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace.” And there you see his full humanity.

He was a son given, a child born, but he’s also the wonderful counselor, the mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace. And the angels say that this baby born on this cold night is the savior and he’s come to bring peace on earth. I think someone something everybody agrees on is that there’s something very wrong in the world. Things are not as they should be. Things have gone sideways and there’s evil and there’s suffering and there’s sickness and disease and there’s death and we all sense it.

We all know this this is not right. This is not the way things are supposed to be. All you have to do is turn on the news and you see there’s suffering. It’s non-stop. There’s there’s non-stop fighting.

There’s non-stop death. And yet we crave peace. Why why would we crave it if it’s not available? If it’s not there, if there’s not a possibility of ever having peace, why is it something we long for? And we all want inner peace.

And yet people every day struggle with sadness. They they struggle with depression, feelings of hopelessness. But we so want peace. The angel said, “This night, peace on earth is proclaimed.” Now, some people choose to blame God.

They look at the way the world is and they say, “Oh, it must be his fault. Bad design. It’s God’s fault.” But you know something about pointing a finger at God is there’s always three fingers pointing back at yourself. And the fact is the Bible explains that God’s not the one to blame.

See, God did everything perfectly right when he made the world at the beginning. It was all right. It was all good. And there was peace. There was shalom.

As the Bible talks about, we were created to live securely in his love. That’s how you’ve been designed. Be in the love of the father. But like sheep, stubborn sheep that love to wander away from the flock and and get into all kinds of trouble. That that’s what the Bible compares us to.

The Bible says you all or we all like sheep have gone astray. We’ve gone away from our God-given purpose, which is to love and be loved. And so the Bible says that because our first parents made that decision and we followed right after them and we’ve all gotten to this state where now we’re we’re morally and we’re spiritually lost. The world is not at peace, but we want it to be at peace. We long for it.

And you ask, well, what have what has God done about it? That’s what Christmas is all about. See, people know that we’re supposed to be good. Now, some people will even say, what about all the good people do? Isn’t that proof that people are basically good?

But what I notic is that the same people who would say that also lock their doors at night. And and you know we think of it as normal that we use like passcodes for example to get into our phones but if people are basically good and there’s no problems then why do we have to do things like that? See everywhere you look there’s reminders that things are not right that I am not right there’s something in me that needs to change. And the Bible says that Jesus came on a mission. It was not on a mission of war but a mission to establish peace between God and mankind.

He came to do what we could not do. What we make promises or at least our our politicians make promises of establishing peace. But the Bible says no the government is on his shoulders because only he as the prince of peace can bring it about. That’s what the angels were singing about. They they said peace on earth and mercy mild.

God and sinners reconciled. See, that is what Christmas is ultimately all about. It’s about being reconciled to your creator. That’s why Jesus came. He came not only to relate to us, but to save us.

And our first and greatest need is to be reconciled to God. Jesus said he came to seek and save the lost. So yes, humanity is broken. I think we all feel that. We all recognize that at some point.

But God came to restore us to himself. The angels after they went into heaven, they they left the the shepherds with a question. They had to answer this. What are we going to do with this information? The angels have just told us that a savior has been born, Christ the Lord.

But the question was still there for them. Are we going to believe this? Is this the truth? Are we going to take them at their word? Are we going to look into this?

Many people today are asking that same question. Is Jesus really the savior of the world? He made some amazing claims about himself. I and the father are one. No one comes to the father except through me.

I am the resurrection and the life. No person talks like that, right? Jesus said those things. And the question is, do you believe him? Was Jesus telling the truth?

Like those angels, were they telling the truth? And I think we can look at what the shepherds did. They did the sensible thing. They said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see.” See, that’s what we’re called to do.

That’s what God is calling each of us to do. Not just to to accept it as this is what other people have believed. This is what my parents believed. He wants us to know for ourselves. He wants us to go and see.

In fact, that was the way Jesus invited his first shepherds or his first disciples, I should say. He said to them, “Come and see. Come and see. Just just come and see what I can do. See if I really am the Messiah.

See if I am the Savior who came into this world to rescue you. Because either way, there was either a baby in that manger or there wasn’t. It can’t be both ways. Either the angels were telling the truth about Jesus or they weren’t. John Adams, the president, second president of the United States said, facts are stubborn things.

And what he meant was you you have to deal with facts. Feelings are opinion. You know, that’s one thing. You can have your own opinion, but you can’t have your own facts. Facts.

We all have to deal with facts. And the fact of Jesus coming is something that we all need to deal with. In the same way, Jesus either is the son of God and savior we all need, or he isn’t. It can’t be both ways. It can’t be true for you, but not for me.

It’s got to be true for everybody if it’s true. And Jesus said that he had come that we could have life. That’s what we want. And so the the example of the shepherds is this. Go and investigate.

Go look. Let’s see. Let’s go. And that’s my encouragement to you. If you don’t yet know for sure about Jesus, you’re still wondering about him.

Okay. Well, then look at what Jesus said. Come and see. Look into his gospels. Read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Take a look at what he said, what he claimed about himself. What the followers of him said about him, saying he never sinned once. He was pure, spotless. Nobody could find any fault with Jesus. Even those who condemned him to death had to come up with a story to condemn him.

See, part of being human is that our hearts must be captivated by something. We we can’t just have a void within. We are always captivated with something and and we we are always looking for something to fill that void. The angels were inviting these shepherds to see that the child in the manger was something to be captivated with. You can’t just, you know, the Bible says we’re not just made to be enthralled with ourselves, enamored with ourselves.

We’re we’re made to be in awe of something bigger than ourselves. And the angels were saying that’s him. Go and be in awe of him. See him. Because in that baby in the manger, you have the greatest revelation of God’s love.

That God did not leave us alone in our misery. He didn’t leave us alone with our bad news. He came with good news and he came to rescue us. As the song says, it was when he appeared that the soul felt its worth. The truth of Christmas is that your soul has worth because there is a God who loves you and he has done everything necessary to reconcile you to himself.

You don’t need to do anything. You don’t have to contribute one bit because there’s nothing you could do that could ever be enough. In saying the baby is Christ the Lord, the angels were saying he’s not only the Messiah, he is the Lord God. He is the word who was God who became flesh. That’s what John 1 talks about.

And this word made flesh was eventually crucified. And it was when he was there on that cross, as he was suspended between heaven and earth, that he was most fully revealed as the prince of peace. The Bible says God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. In other words, it’s at the cross of Jesus Christ that you can find that peace. You can’t find it anywhere else.

There will be lots of advertisements, lots of people campaigning for your attention, saying, “This is going to give you peace. This is going to make everything okay in your life.” But if you do not know the prince of peace, there is no peace that you can truly know. Some people assume God is like a judge who just, you know, casually dismisses crimes because he can. But if you think about it, a good judge, if you were in court, you’re standing before a judge and and is you you’ve gotten a speeding ticket, a good judge is not going to look the other way and pretend you didn’t do anything.

A good judge is going to say, “You know what? This requires a there’s a crime that’s been committed and there needs to be a payment made. That’s what a good judge does. A bad judge looks the other way when crimes are committed and says, “You know what? We’ll just forget about that.”

See, what God did at the cross is so amazing because he didn’t just see your sins and then look the other way. That would have been a bad judge. He looked at your sins and he said, “I’m going to take your sins and I’m going to put it on my son. My son Jesus will bear your sins. He will suffer the penalty.

He will make the payment that your sins deserve. And he will do it completely. So there’s nothing left for you to pay, but you do have to respond.” When you understand that he was dying for you on that cross, that changes everything. He was bearing your penalty.

And when he rose again, which is historically verified, he really did come out of that tomb on the third day. That proved that all of his claims, his monumental claims had to be true because Jesus defeated death. So this is the message of Christmas. God came in human flesh. He was born to save us.

He died on that cross for the sins of the world. He rose again so he can change our lives and give us eternal life. That’s the promise. And if you’re hearing this and you’re recognizing, you know what? I I don’t know that I yet have a relationship with Jesus.

I’m not really sure. I I don’t know when I die. I don’t know where I’m going to go. Actually, I would like to know. And if that is you, I can’t think of a better time to be reconciled to God.

And it’s it’s it’s important that we know this is what Christmas is all about. Yes, we love the candy. Yes, we love, you know, Santa Claus and all the all the things, the gifts, the the feasts, all of that. It means nothing if we miss this most important thing. God has come to save us.

That’s what Christmas is about. And when Jesus died on the cross, it was for everyone. That is the message of Christmas. So know that it’s not automatic. See, some people think that it’s just this automatic thing.

No, you have to respond. The Bible says you got to repent, which means turn from your sin, forsake it, and believe, which means you put your trust in Jesus, not in what you’ve done, not in how much Jesus should love you. You put your trust in Jesus because he loves you and he did everything necessary. And when you do that, you can be saved from your sins and have a relationship with God that lasts forever. So, let’s do this.

I’m going to go ahead and ask the band to come on back up at this time. And if you’re here and you’re thinking to yourself, you know, I I really would like to know God. I would like to know that my sins are forgiven. I I would like to know that I have eternal life. Not something that I’m progressing towards, but that is mine now.

Something I possess even today. And if that’s you and you want to begin a new life with Jesus, you want to put your trust in Jesus today, would you just slip up your hand? If you’re ready to make that commitment, and this is something that it’s not to be done lightly, but it is so important. The Bible says this when when you’re thinking, you know, I could put this off for later because I got all all kinds of time. The Bible says, no, actually, you don’t know how much time you have.

God knows. But the Bible says this, “Today I

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